Eligibility Guide

Overview

Expanding your business is a challenge in these difficult times. However, the nonprofit segment of the market offers key growth opportunities to financial advisors. A $542 billion financial services organization,1 TIAA-CREF is leveraging its strength as one of the largest providers of retirement plans and services to colleges and universities by expanding its presence in the K-12, hospital and government segments of the market. TIAA-CREF can give you the support you need to better serve your clients in these markets.

Newly Expanded Institutional Eligibility

Under the expanded eligibility criteria, we now provide our retirement planning solutions and optional employee benefit programs to all nonprofit institutions and governmental agencies and their employees.

An eligible institution is an organization that meets our criteria to offer TIAA-CREF-funded retirement plans, regardless of whether TIAA-CREF is actually available there. Examples include nonprofit colleges and universities, public and private elementary and secondary schools, teaching hospitals, religious organizations, museums, libraries and certain other nonprofit institutions. Governmental entities, including political subdivisions and local, state or federal government agencies, are also eligible.

An eligible nonprofit organization is an entity that is:

organized as a not-for-profit corporation under the Not-for-Profit Law of any state or the District of Columbia, or

classified as one of the following types of organizations under the Internal Revenue Code: 501(c)(1), 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), 501(c)(6), 501(c)(7), 501(c)(9) and 501(c)(10).

U.S. governmental entities include the federal government of the United States, state governments, the District of Columbia and local governments (i.e., cities or other municipalities) in the 50 states, as well as federal, state, city or municipal agencies. Examples of eligible governmental employers include:

Examples of eligible governmental employers include:

Public school districts

Municipal fire departments

State parks departments

State or municipal agencies, such as transit or sanitation departments

The U.S. Postal Service

State or municipal police departments

The U.S. Forest Service

The U.S. military

Participant eligibility

TIAA-CREF’s low-cost2 investment offerings and retirement savings solutions are available to participants in institutional retirement accounts as well as those who have retirement savings in IRAs, including SEPs and Simple IRAs.

Individuals do not need to be participants in a TIAA-CREF retirement plan to take advantage of our investment services or retirement savings solutions. Under our expanded eligibility criteria, more individuals can gain access to our full investment lineup, including our unique offerings, TIAA Traditional and the TIAA Real EstateAccount. We’re pleased to provide the following criteria to help you determine your clients’ eligibility and support your business.

Individuals may open an IRA product if at least one of the following criteria is met:

The participant or his or her eligible family member3 is:

A current employee of any eligible institution;

A retired employee from any eligible institution;

A current trustee of any eligible institution;

An existing participant in an eligible employer-sponsored retirement plan with TIAA-CREF or own his/her individual insurance contract through TIAA;

A family member3 of anyone eligible to open a TIAA-CREF IRA; or

A surviving eligible family member3 of anyone eligible to open an IRA product.

The participant is the parent, parent-in-law, step-parent, sibling, step-sibling, child or step-child of an eligible individual.

Questions About Eligibility?

If you would like more information about who is eligible for TIAA-CREF’s investment and retirement savings solutions, please call the TIAA-CREF Advisor Services team at 888 842-0318, select option 1, Monday through Friday between the hours of 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. ET (Eastern Time).

1 TIAA-CREF had $542 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2013.

2 Based on Morningstar data (Morningstar Direct, September 30, 2013), the expense ratio on all mutual fund products and variable annuity accounts managed by TIAA-CREF is generally less than half the mutual fund industry average. 70% are less than half their respective Morningstar Universe average and 60% are less than half their respective Morningstar Universe median.